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I don't think it would be THAT bad. Lol. I've done a complete rescape that included adding sand substrate to my 55g. Of course we're looking a a whole new level with this one.

I've just had a discussion with my husband, and we've made the decision to not get Discus until we have a generator. From what we've heard from our neighbors, the electric goes off often, and for long periods of time up here. . .

Soooooooooooooo, it seem that a generator will be necessary unless I don't mind a bunch of dead fish every few months.

Here's a nice video I found to give you some idea's:
Have you thought of a big school of Cardinals as tankmates?

Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.
Once you learn to quit, it becomes a habit. -Vince Lombardi
“Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.” ― John WoodenSandy Hook Elementary......Lest We Forget
See my profile for my tanks and what fish I keep

TD- I'm in KY, so it gets pretty darn cold. We're talking possible negatives at times. My whole house is electric sooooo if the power goes out, everything goes. I DO have a kerosene heater for emergencies, so if I had a generator to run the tank I think they would be okay. We've already had to do it once this year. . . Thankfully we had a generator to borrow, but we won't always be able to depend on that.

s1- Thanks for that video. So pretty! I kind of already have my stocking though. It's in my sig. I moved them over from the old 55g. I'm getting a little discouraged, and the video reminded me why I wanted to do this in the first place.

So last night my husband and I sat down to talk about our filtration options. After looking at pump prices and things like that, we've concluded that a sump most likely would be cheaper. Even if it were about the same cost, the fact that we would be able to remove most of the equipment from the inside and top of the tank would make it worth it.

I'm leaning towards a 3 drawer trickle filter, because I think it would save us room under the tank, and be simpler because we could use just about anything to hold water. HE wants to do a traditional sump. That's okay with me, but he doesn't want to use the 55g. His reasoning is that we wouldn't have much room to tinker with things under the stand, which makes since. Other than that we have a 10g that we could use, I'm just certain that it wouldn't provide enough room. If we do this I want it to be the only filtration system on the tank. He said he knew where a 20g was, but who knows if he'll be able to get it.

All that being said, I'm going to go along with his plan for now. I know we're not buying another tank for this purpose, so if he can't come up with the 20g we'll have to go with the 3 drawer trickle down.

Below we have our overflow plans. (Drilling is not an option at this point)

This is using black PVC.

Now down here are the sump plans.

I have a few questions about the sump. What kind of plants would I put in there? Would I need to use two heaters or one?

Now as for a 3 drawer trickle filter, I've still not found a diagram of exactly how these things work. Are there holes in the bottoms of the drawers or what??

Getting a sump makes a lot of sense. Doesn't wallmart sell 30-ish gallon food safe plastic containers? That would work. Additional benefit of a sump, with relatively little battery power you can run the pump on it for quite some time.

Plants.. anything that grows fast really. I've seen sumps with hygrophilia but even with papyrus. Equisetum would work, aquatic mint, cabomba, eloda. The whole idea is that you get something that uses up the stuff you don't want. Don't go for things that are very small like duckweed or that fragment easily.